Jason Suwala gave a presentation titled “Advances in satellite EO data analytics for aquaculture” at the Aquaculture Canada 2019 conference in Victoria, BC. The presentation and abstract are below.
World aquaculture production continues to grow and now provides half of all fish for human consumption (FAO, 2016a), but its sustainability is being impacted by climate change, competition for space and natural resources, pollution and environmental degradation. Effective management of the sector requires appropriate and accessible data to inform management decisions. Satellite earth observation technology has developed rapidly in the past five years, with numerous advances in spatial resolution, spectral information, frequency of observation, and cost-effectiveness (open data). The information can inform aquaculture development (strategic planning, zonation and site suitability), aquaculture practice and management (inventory, status, monitoring of the environment and monitoring at the farm level), and aquaculture risk management (disaster risk management, response, recovery, monitoring and assessment). While the growing volume of satellite data represents a unique opportunity for aquaculture, it also poses a major challenge to achieve its full potential in terms of extracting valuable management information. A variety of big-data platforms currently seek to address these issues by bringing together satellite data, environmental data, and analytics processing systems. These platforms include the European Space Agency funded Coastal and Food Security Platforms and Google’s Earth Engine. Each platform has a variety of benefits which are discussed.